Download Festival: a guide to the 2019 rockfest | Central

One of the biggest rock and metal festivals in the world is opening the gates today to welcome thousands of fans ahead of this week’s Download Festival. Gates at Donington Park in Leicestershire will open at midday today to allow early-arrivals time to set up camp.

The festival runs from Friday 14th June to Sunday 16th June, and welcomes the genre’s biggest names. Festival-goers are being urged to leave plenty of time for their journeys to Download, and to stick to signposted routes.

Major roads in the area are expected to be busy during the festival. Highways England will use electronic message boards on nearby motorways to advise people of any delays. Roads expected to be busy include:

The Download Festival will be putting on mindfulness sessions for campers at this year’s event. It will host a mix of meditative sessions, conscious breathing workshops and healing sound baths.

“We have been working closely with the event organisers and other key partners to ensure that travel to and from the event runs as safely and smoothly as possible.There will be extra traffic officer patrols during the peak arrival/departure times and we will have crews solely dedicated to dealing with incidents on the surrounding roads so unexpected breakdowns or obstructions can be quickly cleared.

Our advice to motorists is allow extra time for journeys in that area, particularly if you are travelling to East Midlands Airport.If you are attending the Download Festival follow the road signs, and the instructions from the organisers, as they will guide you the correct route to the correct car park.”